Qui Est Veritas?

After experiencing "The Passion of the Christ" for the first time on April 15, 2004, I went home and composed a number of writings from my reflections -- including the following: Qui Est Veritas? (What is Truth?). Since this blog was non-existent then, permit me to share it with you now...

What is truth? Truth…the undeniable longing of every soul, the quest embedded in each human spirit, the continually undefined mystery, the searching of every human heart…

Down through the ages, from the beginning of time, mankind has engaged in a continual search to find this essence of fulfillment. This quest of humanity is summed in the three words spoken by Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate in the year 33 A.D.: Que est Veritas? What is truth?

The very circumstances of his statement reflect the extent of how blind humanity can really be to truth – or perhaps the hesitance of man to embrace truth once exposed to it. For Pilate asks this question while standing before the very essence of Truth Itself: the second person of the Blessed Trinity, Divinity present in flesh, the God made Man…a living, breathing, walking, speaking embodiment of truth. Yet with this fullness before his very eyes, Pilate asks in confusion and wonderment: Que est Veritas? What is truth?

How does one attempt to define this mystery? The explanation of truth can be both very complex and very simple. Great philosophers and theologians may spend years, or even a lifetime, working toward understanding and defining the essence of truth, and yet it – like many other great mysteries – can often be simply and confidently unraveled by a small child.

Truth is beauty, and beauty is truth. Purity is truth, and truth is purity. Nothing is this world or outside of it that is good, pure, and beautiful is without truth. This truth may stand out clearly and recognizably, or it may be difficult to see. Mankind’s most formidable trio of enemies – the world, the flesh, and the devil – never cease attempting to combine what is not true with the good and the beautiful. In many areas of society and culture today, they have succeededin luring and confusing human beings into following what appears beautiful, but in reality, is whitewashed poison containing no fragments of goodness or truth.

Could this be the reason for so much discontentment and unhappiness in our world today? Man, who was created with an inborn gravitation toward goodness, beauty, purity and truth, is turning in all the wrong directions to find it. None of the avenues endorsed by our current pagan culture will ever lead mankind to fulfillment. The human race will be left searching until it turns to God…the creator of good, the essence of purity, the well-spring of beauty, and the source of truth.